FLOODLAND

Sisters Of Mercy: Andrew Eldritch (vocals, guitar, keyboards, programming); Patricia Morrison (vocals, guitar, keyboards). Producers: Andrew Eldritch, Larry Alexander, Jim Steinman. Engineers: Larry Alexander, Roy Neave, Andrew Eldritch. Long before Trent Reznor brought his brand of densely textured, hard-hitting Goth rock to the world, The Sisters Of Mercy were creating the mould with albums such as FLOODLAND. Here, front man Andrew Eldritch and company mix styles with a dark and gloomy palette. Songs are built with punishing and/or danceable drum machine tracks, guitars that alternately moan and crash, touches of '80s keyboards, and Eldritch's deeply resonant, undertaker voice, for a sound that made the Sisters one of the leading lights of the '80s Goth movement. "Dominion/Mother Russia," the album's opener, presages industrial goth with its epic, thunderous rhythm track, wiry guitar lines and a chorus that treads that fine line between dance pop and death metal. Especially notable here is the inclusion of the band's best known single "This Corrosion," a multi-layered goth-pop gem held together by a eerie back-up choir and a driving dance beat. Though the stylistic focus of the album varies from the chilling piano balladry of "1959," to the battering ram, chamber-of-horrors hypnosis of "Lucretia My Reflection," FLOODLAND is probably the band's most cohesive and accessible album.